14. december, 2015 – Den russiske generalstabschef, general Valeriy Gerasimov, afgav en længere rapport om det russiske militær til forsvars-attachéer i Moskva i morges. ”Tilspidsning af globale og regionale sikkerhedsproblemer karakteriserer situationen i verden nu til dags. Det hænger først og fremmest sammen med udvidelsen af den internationale terrorisme og radikale ekstremisme”, lagde han ud med at sige. ”For det første giver NATO’s uvenskabelige militærpolitik over for Rusland anledning til bekymring. Alliancen udvider sin militære tilstedeværelse og forstærker sine væbnede styrkers aktivitet langs den Russiske Føderations grænser.” Med deployering af et ballistisk missilforsvar og udvikling af nye krigsvåben”, sagde han, ”forværres problemet med ubalancen i de strategiske styrker.”

Andre trusler inkluderer farvede revolutioner (han brugte ikke dette udtryk, men det fremgik klart af hans beskrivelse, at det var det, han talte om) til at omvælte regeringer, spredning af masseødelæggelsesvåben; forbrydelser og narkotikahandel hen over grænser; separatisme; og ukontrolleret folkevandring samt fremmedhad. ”Kombinationen af disse årsager og tilstedeværelsen af en dybt rodfæstet, mellemstatslig spænding skaber en trussel om optrapning af nye og aktuelle konflikter. Desværre bare stiger og stiger antallet af sådanne konflikter”, sagde han. ”En forening af hele verdenssamfundets bestræbelser imod de fælles udfordringer og trusler, først og fremmest international terrorisme, er en tiltagende oplagt nødvendighed.”

Med hensyn til Syrien er Rusland i færd med at smede relationer til mange lande over denne konflikt. ”Så meget desto mere, som den moderne historie udviser eksempler på succesfuldt samarbejde mellem de vestlige lande og den Russiske Føderation. Heriblandt fælles aktiviteter under den Internationale Styrkes Sikkerhedsassistances operation i Afghanistan, løsning af problemet med kemiske våben i Syrien, styrkelse af drøftelser om ”Irans atomprogram”, undertegning og implementering af ”Minskaftalerne” og kampen mod pirater i området ud for Afrikas Horn”, sagde Gerasimov. ”Under disse omstændigheder udgør de russiske væbnede styrker statens hovedinstrument i tilvejebringelse af sikkerhed i enhver situation, såvel som i løsningen af opgaver under militærkonflikter af forskellig intensitet.”

Meget af den resterende del af rapporten var helliget det russiske militærs moderniseringsbestræbelser, som er ganske store inden for områderne bemanding samt uddannelse og udstyr. Af største betydning var Gerasimovs understregning af moderniseringen af Ruslands atom-afskrækkelsesvåben, der, sagde han, vil blive udviklet ”til at opretholde de offensive og strategisk defensive styrker på et niveau, der vil levere den garanterede afskrækkelse af aggression rettet mod den Russiske Føderation og dens allierede.” Andre områder, som Gerasimov rapporterede om, var fremskridt mht. fornyelse af udstyret i de militære tjenester hen imod målsætningen om 70 % ’s moderne udrustning ved år 2020, og professionaliseringen af tjenesternes mandskab.

14. december 2015 – Den russiske forsvarsminister Sergei Shoigu satte, i bemærkninger i Forsvarsministeriet den 11. dec., kød på NATO’s militære opbygning rundt om Ruslands periferi. »Alene i løbet af det seneste år har NATO deployeret tretten gange så mange tropper, otte gange så mange militære fly og op til 300 tanks og infanteri-kampkøretøjer til de Baltiske Stater, Polen og Rumænien«, sagde han. Han bemærkede, at NATO aktivt er i færd med at muliggøre de tidligere jugoslaviske republikkers, Georgiens og Ukraines indtræden i ’forsvars’-alliancen og trække Finland, Sverige og Moldova ind i sin sfære. NATO har ligeledes etableret et cybersikkerhedscenter i Estland og et strategisk propagandacenter i Letland. NATO har 200 atombomber i Europa, og disse bomber er i færd med at blive moderniseret, og NATO har 310 fly, der befinder sig i forskellige stadier af beredskab til at kaste disse bomber, bemærkede Shoigu.

Moskvas bekymringer blev leveret direkte til Washingtons nationale sikkerhedsetablissement i løbet af weekenden i form af en kronik i Defense News, forfattet af Ruslan Pukhov, direktør for Centret forAnalyse af Strategier og Teknologier i Moskva. Pukhov skriver om de fremskridt, som det russiske militær har gjort inden for modernisering af sig selv, konfronteret med sanktioner og andre handlinger fra NATO’s side, og de udfordringer, det stadig står overfor, såsom mht. mandskab. »Samtidig har NATO’s anti-russiske, aggressive militære aktivitet i Østeuropa, som NATO-landene ikke engang gør sig den ulejlighed at lægge skjul på, hidtil ikke ført til nogen håndgribelige ændringer i Ruslands militære planlægning«, skriver han. »Dette får os til at mene, at Moskva ikke anser en militær storkonfrontation med Vesten for at være en reel mulighed.« I stedet forlader Rusland sig på sine strategiske atomstyrker for at modgå Vestens militære trussel, en strategi, som han sammenligner med Eisenhowers »New Look« i 1950-erne.

I Syrien, fortsætter Pukhov, er det fortsat uklart, om den russiske militære intervention vil frembringe det ønskede resultat, alt imens den komplicerer Ruslands relationer med USA, Tyrkiet og andre magter. Ud over alt dette søger regimet i Kijev at sabotere Minsk-aftalerne med det formål at tiltrække mere international opmærksomhed og sympati. »I 2016 vil Moskva blive konfronteret med udsigterne til voksende krise på to fronter samtidigt. I begge tilfælde vil opgaven for præsident Putin være at gennemføre en hårfin balancegang mellem at beskytte russiske interesser og forhindre en endnu større konfrontation med Vesten, konkluderer Pukhov.

Foto: 11. december 2015: Præsident Vladimir Putin taler ved Forsvarsministeriets styrelses udvidede møde i Nationalforsvarets Styrelsescenter i Moskva. 

10. december, 2015 – Den tidligere leder af det amerikanske forsvars efterretningstjeneste (Defense Intelligence Agency), den bramfri generalløjtnant Michael Flynn, var blandt hovedtalerne ved en RT–konference (Russia Today) i Moskva i torsdags, hvor han understregede behovet for et samarbejde mellem USA, Rusland og andre lande med henblik på at besejre Islamisk Stat.

Konferencen højtideligholdt 10-årsdagen for grundlæggelsen af RT som Ruslands internationale nyheds-Tv-station. RT har over samme tidsrum opbygget et publikum på 700 millioner mennesker til dets engelsk-, spansk- og arabisksprogede udsendelser, som det blev bemærket af den russiske præsident Vladimir Putin i hans lykønsknings-budskab til konferencen.

Gen. Flynns deltagelse i konferencen sendte i sig selv et budskab om, at seriøse personer i USA’s og Ruslands regeringsinstitutioner har planer om at etablere, som deres fælles sag, besejringen af et internationalt terror-apparat, der i henhold til gen. Flynns estimat sandsynligvis tæller 30.000 plus udenlandske krigere fra 80 forskellige lande i sine syriske og irakiske rækker.

I et interview med RT i forbindelse med konferencen sagde Flynn, at ”Jeg står i et forum sammen med russisk TV, helt ærligt, for at stå frem og sige til verden: ’Hør her, vi er nødt til at gøre mere som internationalt samfund’” for at besejre denne fjende, ”og vi er nødt til at have en følelse af en påtrængende nødvendighed”. Han opfordrede russerne og amerikanerne til at finde ud af at tilpasse deres strategier og angav nogle af sine egne tanker om, hvad det indebærer.

Islamisk Stat er vokset ud over blot at være en regional trussel; det er en global trussel, som vi har set det i Paris og San Bernadino i Californien, understregede Flynn. Ligesom der også har været direkte trusler inden for Ruslands grænser.

”Jeg tror, at små ting, såsom at dele efterretninger, arbejde sammen, at få hinanden indenfor i vore respektive operationscentre, kan skabe en begyndende forståelse for, hvor de militære muligheder ligger – men vi er også nødt til at have nogle andre strategiske målsætninger, der i praksis virker gensidigt understøttende”, sagde Flynn.

Af konferencens øvrige internationale deltagere, hvis præsentationer endnu ikke er nedfældet, kan nævnes den tidligere tjekkiske vicepremier- og udenrigsminister Cyril Svoboda; samt den ”tyske statsmand og forhenværende vicepræsident for OSCE, Willy Wimmer”.

11. december 2015 – I en tale i dag ved det Russiske Forsvarsministeriums Bestyrelses udvidede møde gav forsvarsminister Sergei Shoigu en detaljeret rapport om NATO’s udvidelse i Vest- og Østeuropa, der tydeligvis er rettet imod Rusland – og intet andet.

»Tendensen mod en forværring af den militære og politiske, internationale situation er fortsat, især i Europa, Centralasien og Mellemøsten«, advarede Shoigu i sin bredspektrede tale, der dækkede alle aspekter af Ruslands forsvarsevner og beredskab.

NATO’s udvidelse er foregået hurtigt, sagde han, og har inkorporeret 12 nye medlemmer på relativt kort tid. »I dag forbereder Montenegro, Makedonien, Bosnien og Herzegovina, Georgien og Ukraine sig på at tilslutte sig NATO«, sagde han. Finland, Sverige, Serbien og Moldova er i færd at blive trukket ind i NATO’s interesseområder.

Antallet af NATO-fly er steget med otte gange, rapporterede Shoigu, alt imens antallet af tjenestegørende mænd steg med tretten gange på De baltiske Staters, Polens og Rumæniens territorier. Der er også planlagt op til 300 tanks og infanteri-kampkøretøjer til disse nationer, ligesom Aegis Ashore missilforsvarssystemet også deployeres til Rumænien og Polen.

Hertil kommer omkring 200 amerikanske luftatombomber, i Italien, Belgien, Nederlandene, Tyskland og Tyrkiet; desuden er 310 bombefly i forskellige stadier af beredskab. Den russiske forsvarsminister bemærkede også, at et cyber-sikkerhedscenter er blevet etableret i Talinn, i Estland, samt et strategisk propagandacenter i Riga, Letlands hovedstad. Sidstnævntes formål, sagde han, er at give NATO-medlemslande mulighed for at opnå »informationsoverlegenhed« over Rusland.

11. december 2015 – I en tale i dag ved det udvidede møde i Forsvarsministeriets bestyrelse, der inkluderede Ruslands militære topledelse, fremlagde præsident Vladimir Putin og forsvarsminister Sergei Shoigu et detaljeret billede af landets globale militære strategi frem til 2020. Putin indledte med en diskussion om det russiske militærs rolle i Syrien, men understregede mere bredt betydningen af opgraderingen og moderniseringen af Ruslands militære evner, inklusive landets Strategiske Atomstyrker.

Rusland må »bevæbne alle komponenterne i atomtriaden med nye våben, hæve effektiviteten af missilangrebs-advarselssystemet og luftforsvarssystemet«, sagde han. Som Shoigu påpegede, så tager den Nationale Forsvarsplan 2016-2020, som præsident Putin godkendte i november, »alle militære trusler og udfordringer i betragtning og yder beskyttelse til landet i henhold til alle varianter af militære konflikter, der måtte bryde ud med deltagelse af den Russiske Føderation. De Russiske Bevæbnede Styrkers kvalitetsforhold er blevet forbedret«. I denne sammenhæng gav Shoigu en detaljeret rapport over NATO’s provokerende udvidelse op til Ruslands grænser (se separat nyhedsrapportering).

Men hensyn til Syrien understregede Putin, at luft- og flådestyrkerne, der er deployeret dertil, forsvarer deres land.

»Vore handlinger er ikke motiveret af nogle obskure og abstrakte geopolitiske interesser eller et ønske om at træne vore styrker og afprøve nye våben – hvilket selvfølgelig også er et vigtigt mål«, sagde Putin. »Vores hovedformål er at afværge en trussel mod den Russiske Føderation.« Han sagde udtrykkeligt, at enhver styrke, der truede det russiske militær, ville blive ødelagt og opfordrede militæret til at reagere »på den mest barske måde« over for sådanne trusler. Shoigu rapporterede, at ISIS nu kontrollerer 70 % af Syriens territorium og har 60.000 militante kæmpere der. Pr. dags dato har Rusland udført 4.000 sortier og ødelagt 8.000 terroristfaciliteter.

Den russiske præsident rapporterede ligeledes, at militære aktioner er koordineret med politi og efterretningstjenester, såsom FSB, internt i Rusland. »I har set, at FSB’s organisationer i bogstavelig talt hele landet har afsløret hemmelige celler for diverse terroristorganisationer, inklusive den berygtede ISIS.« Folk med russisk nationalitet, ikke kun fra Nordkaukasus, men også fra andre regioner, er aktivt involveret i terroristernes kamp i Syrien, sagde han. »Og dette er en direkte trussel mod Rusland«, sagde han. Shoigu advarede om, at »Islamisk Stats indflydelsesområde ekspanderer. Der er en trussel om, at deres handlinger vil blive overført til Centralasien og Kaukasus.«

Putin roste de ubådslancerede krydsermissiler, der blev brugt imod terrorister i Syrien, og påpegede, at både vandbaserede og luftbårne krydsermissiler har vist sig højst effektive og kan udstyres med både konventionelle og atomare sprænghoveder. »Dette er«, sagde han, »selvfølgelig ikke nødvendigt i kampen mod terrorister og vil, håber jeg, aldrig blive nødvendigt.«

Sputnik rapporterede i dag, at Putin beordrede de Russiske Bevæbnede Styrker til at koordinere med kommandoposter under den israelsk og amerikansk ledede koalition. »Det er vigtigt at fremme kooperation med alle de lande, der virkelig er interesseret i at eliminere terrorister. Jeg taler om de kontakter, der tilsigter at sikre sikkerhed [dekonfliktion, -red.] med det israelske Luftvåbens kommandoposter og med den amerikansk ledede, anti-Daesh koalitions styrker.«

Men hverken menneskehedens udslettelse i et termonukleart Armageddon eller ofringen af menneskeliv til fordel for finansoligarkiet er uundgåelig. At forhindre dette kræver først og fremmest, at man overvinder partianskuelser eller geopolitiske anskuelser og i stedet erstatter dem med et upartisk samarbejde på alle niveauer, for menneskehedens fælles interesser. Ikke overraskende viser EU, der siden Maastrichttraktaten har udviklet sig til et monstrum, i lyset af flygtningekrisen og det forestående finanskrak, sig ikke alene at være en mislykket model, men EU er yderligere nu ved at gennemføre en åbenlyst fascistisk politik. Det seneste fremstød i denne retning er Bruxelles meddelelse om, at den under alle omstændigheder allerede afskyelige EU-grænsekontrol-organisation Frontex skal erstattes af en ny organisation, der kontrolleres fra Bruxelles, og som deporterer flygtninge med egne grænsevagter, opererer i ikke-EU-medlemsstater og kan sætte sig ud over indvendinger fra medlemsstater. Dermed ville det i flygtningespørgsmålet komme til den største overførsel af suverænitet til Bruxelles, siden euroens indførelse.

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9. december, 2015 – IMF ændrede i tirsdags reglerne for sin (giftige) udlånsvirksomhed, for derved eksplicit at give Ukraine mulighed for ikke at tilbagebetale sin gæld til Rusland. IMF forsøger stadigvæk at komme på en formulering af “rationalet” bag ændringen, men det står klart, at London og Washington har indgået aftale om, at konfrontation med Rusland må være enhver ”vestlig” institutions opgave.

IMF udsendte følgende: “IMF’s bestyrelse mødtes i dag og aftalte at ændre den nuværende politik vedrørende nul-tolerance over for restance til statens kreditorer. Vi vil i de kommende dage komme med de detaljerede forskrifter for rækkevidden af, og rationalet bag, denne ændring i vores politik”.

For indeværende vil reglen alene berøre Ukraine og Rusland.

IMF har tidligere ændret sine regler for at gøre det muligt at udlåne ”med restancer” til Ukraine – dvs., at låne dem yderligere penge, selvom de ikke tilbagebetalte gamle IMF-lån. Så begyndte IMF’s direktør Christine Lagarde personligt at forhandle med Ukraines kreditorer om afskrivninger af landets udenlandsgæld – hvilket, som det er blevet bemærket, er det modsatte af IMF’s politik i forhold til Grækenland, og sker til trods for, at Ukraines økonomi og valuta er kuldsejlet mere og mere. Ukraines præsident Poroshenko og premierministeren, Victoria Nulands ”mand Yats”, brugte åbenlyst de tidligere IMF låne-udbetalinger til at finansiere militærets krig med Rusland.

Erklæringen fra i dag betyder, at nationer, der misligholder gæld til andre lande, stadig vil kunne modtage nye IMF lån. Ukraine har – ikke tilfældigt – meddelt, at det ikke vil honorere sin gæld til Rusland på $3 mia., der forfalder ved årets udgang, (og har nægtet at forhandle en gældssanering, som Rusland ellers har tilbudt).

Wall Street Journal nævner, at Rusland har afvist Ukraines forslag om at ’nedbarbere’ gældsforpligtelsen på de $3 mia., alt imens Ukraine afviste et russisk modtilbud med krav om, at Ukraine skal betale hele beløbet, men over en længere tidsramme. ”Dette dødvande truede IMF’s ’redningspakke’ (bailout) til Ukraine, samt andre vestlige hjælpeindsatser for fondens finansiering, inklusiv fra USA og Europa,” siger Wall Street Journal.

“Jeg vil gerne minde om, at kun Rusland har tilbudt at hjælpe Ukraines økonomi og for to år siden gav et lån til landet, der ellers ikke havde adgang til eksterne markeder”, sagde den russiske finansminister Anton Siluanov til journalister i tirsdags. IMF’s beslutning om at ændre sin udlånspolitik er blevet truffet ”for at skade Rusland, og for at legalisere Kievs muligheder for ikke at tilbagebetale sine lån”, sagde han, idet han kaldte beslutningen ”fremtvunget og forudindtaget”.

En kommentator ved RT TV sagde, at dette træk repræsenterer en politik fra USA’s side for at opdele verdens valutaer i to blokke: en dollar-blok (japanske yen, euro, pund), og for hvilken det gælder, at gæld SKAL tilbagebetales, og alle andre, udtrykkeligt refereret til som lån i BRIKS-valutaer, for hvilke det gælder, at tilbagebetaling er valgfrit.

10. december 2015 – Den russiske premierminister Dmitry Medvedev sagde i et Tv-interview i går, at Tyrkiets nedskydning af det russiske Su-24 bombefly i Syrien den 24. nov. var tilstrækkelig »casus belli« til at begynde en krig, men Rusland valgte ikke at gøre det.

»Det var et direkte angreb på en fremmed stat. I den nuværende situation er en krig det værste, der kunne ske. Derfor blev der taget en beslutning om ikke at levere et symmetrisk svar til det, tyrkerne havde gjort«, forklarede han. »Vi var dog nødt til at gøre dem begribeligt, at de vil stå til ansvar for deres handlinger. Af præcis denne årsag, og for at beskytte vore borgeres sikkerhed, blev de relevante beslutninger truffet.«

Man bør indse, at Ruslands handlinger faktisk ikke er sanktioner, men snarere den russiske stats »beskyttende reaktion«, sagde Medvedev.

10. december 2015 – I et interview på sidelinjen af RT’s 10. jubilæumskonference kaldte det tidligere tyske kristendemokratiske parlamentsmedlem og statssekretær i Forsvarsministeriet Willy Wimmer RT-konferencen for »en meget vigtig begivenhed på et meget vigtigt tidspunkt«, der var en hovedsammenkomst for styrkelse af den »intellektuelle dialog« mellem alle sider i Europa. Han gjorde det klart, at han også havde benyttet lejligheden til at se sine »gode venner« i Moskva, en by, han beskrev som en »hektisk by ligesom Beijing« og skarpt tilføjede, at man på hele kontinentet kun kan sammenligne disse to hektiske byer.

Forespurgt om RT’s rolle i verden benyttede Wimmer lejligheden til ikke alene at give udtryk for sin taknemlighed for, at RT kom på det rette tidspunkt for at tjene som »ny haj i poolen«, hvis nyhedsrapportering tvang andre medier til at give en mere ligevægtig dækning. Midt i konflikten i Ukraine »forhindrede RT og den russiske præsident os i at få en storkrig i Europa … som jeg ser det, så er RT en fredsbevarende kraft«, udtalte Wimmer.

Med formand Tom Gillesberg

Paris, 9. december 2015 (Nouvelle Solidarité) – Det tyrkiske luftvåbens nedskydning af Ruslands Su-24 bombefly over Syrien har blot fortsat udviklingen af den franske situation, siden Hollandes møde med Putin i kølvandet på angrebene i Paris 13. november. En indikation for tendensen er de erklæringer, som den franske ambassadør til Rusland, Jean Maurice Ripert, kom med den 7. dec. på en videnskabskonference i Moskva. Ambassadør Ripert talte om samarbejde mellem Rusland og Frankrig, især omkring spørgsmål om terrorisme, rapporterer Sputnik. »Inden for terrorisme har samarbejde mellem de russiske og franske tjenester aldrig været afbrudt … Vi har samme interesser.« »Inden for disse områder«, understregede han, »sparer Putin og Hollande ingen midler for at få håndgribelige resultater. Præsident Hollande og præsident Putin har talt med hinanden 22 gange siden årets begyndelse. Tror I, der er nogen anden statschef, der har talt så tit med præsident Putin?«, spurgte han.

»Det er i nøden, at man kender sine venner. Angrebene den 13. november ramte Frankrig og hensatte landet i sorg … Og jeg behøver ikke understrege, hvor meget, de russiske myndigheders, og også befolkningen i Moskvas, tilkendegivelser af solidaritet har rørt os.« Han nævnte de lange køer af moskovitter, der kom for at lægge blomster og tænde lys foran den franske ambassade i kølvandet på angrebene i Paris.

Ord er en ting, men kendsgerningerne er undertiden noget barskere. Den franske deployering i Mellemøsten har, alt imens den er en del af den amerikanske koalition, en vis grad af autonomi. Franskmændene deployerer fra deres egne baser – hangarskibet Charles de Gaulle og militærbasen i Abu Dhabi, De forenede arabiske Emirater – og ikke fra Incirlik i Tyrkiet. Siden begyndelsen af deres engagement der, har franskmændene sagt, at, alt imens de er en del af koalitionen, så ville de forlade sig på deres egne efterretninger og selv afgøre, hvad deres mål skal være. Militære kilder her siger, at, på trods af, at de aktuelle efterretninger på jorden i Syrien lider under, at franskmændene totalt har brudt med præsident Assad og Syrien, så har de deres egne efterretninger via satellitter og andre midler.

For at gå yderligere frem med alliancen med Rusland, må Frankrig imidlertid bryde med den amerikanske koalition. Problemet er, at, pga. Frankrigs tab af industri og landets genintegrering i NATO, så er det afhængigt af amerikansk udstyr til hovedoperationer derovre. Og alt imens udenrigsminister Laurent Fabius sagde til Le Progrès de Lyon den 5. dec., at han ikke stillede krav om, at Assad skulle gå, før en politisk overgang finder sted – et skridt fremad vis-à-vis hans tidligere holdninger – så har Frankrig endnu ikke besluttet at genoprette samarbejde med Assad, hvilket er, hvad landet burde gøre.

Alt imens det er vigtigt for Frankrig at begynde at bevæge sig væk fra den angloamerikansk dominerede koalition og hen imod Rusland, så kan løsningen tydeligvis kun komme fra afsættelsen af Obama i USA.

Foto: Moskovitter udtrykker deres solidaritet med Frankrig foran den franske ambassade.

Rusland siger, USA og Rusland snart vil præsentere FN-Resolution for at forkrøble ISIS’ indkomster, sagde Ruslands ambassadør til FN Vitaly Churkin til reportere den 9. dec. »Vi arbejder sammen med USA’s delegation om et fællesprojekt. Dette er en storstilet resolution til bekæmpelse af terrorisme. Vi har tiltro til, at vi vil opnå dette, at denne resolution vil være klar til 18. december.« RT rapporterer, at denne »nye resolution vil indeholde en klausul, der vil håndhæve en strengere implementering af Resolution 2199 [en russisksponsoreret resolution fra februar 2015], der forbyder illegal oliehandel med terroristgrupper.«

Foto: Vitaly Churkin i FN.

9. december 2015 – De amerikanske F-15C luft-til-luft-kampfly, der blev deployeret til Syrien i begyndelsen af november, blev sendt dertil for at være modstandere mod Ruslands tilstedeværelse i Syrien. En unavngiven højtplaceret embedsmand i det amerikanske Luftvåben kom med kommentarer, der faktisk sagde dette, i går, som det rapporteres af The National Interest. Embedsmanden sagde, at kampflyene blev sendt til Tyrkiet, fordi »vi mente, at Rusland var i færd med at optrappe deres krænkelser af grænsen.«

Embedsmanden bekræftede således den erklæring, som kongresmedlem Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hi.) kom med den 1. dec. i Husets Komite for de Væbnede Styrker, da hun udspurgte forsvarsminister Ash Carter om truslen om atomkrig mod Rusland: »Så, den kendsgerning, at vi nu har vores F-15-fly, der afpatruljerer den tyrkisk-syriske grænse, med en primær luft-til-luft-operation – der er ingen luftkamp imod ISIS; de har ingen aktiver i form af luftvåben; så jeg kan kun gå ud fra, at disse flys mål er russiske fly«, sagde hun. Carter svarede aldrig på hendes erklæring om F-15C-flyene, men det er nu demonstreret, at hun har ret.

Den unavngivne embedsmand klagede i øvrigt over, at tyrkerne ødelagde deployeringen af det amerikanske luftvåben med deres nedskydning af det russiske Su-24 fly den 24. november, som det amerikanske luftvåben ikke havde forventet, og det forventede heller ikke den russiske reaktion, dvs. russernes deployering af S-400 luftforsvarssystemet, tættere på den syriske kyst.

Foto: Det russiske krigsskib Moskva krydser nu ud for den syriske havneby Latakia.

Spørgsmålet om Frankrigs overlevelse efter det andet terrormassemord i Paris på et år blev udtrykt, da den franske præsident Hollande omgående og tvingende nødvendigt gik i aktion for at fremtvinge en alliance mellem Rusland, Frankrig og USA for at knuse ISIS og al-Qaeda.

Spørgsmålet om Ruslands overlevelse efter Tyrkiets bombning af det russiske fly over Syrien blev udtrykt, da præsident Putin holdt sin magtfulde tale til parlamentet i militærets hal, og påkaldte Ruslands 15 år lange kamp for at bekæmpe terror i Rusland, og nu, international terror, og indkaldte hver eneste russiske borger til at se sig selv som en »soldat« i denne krig.

Spørgsmålet om Amerikas overlevelse nu har intet at gøre med valggøglet efter terrorangrebet i San Bernardino. Spørgsmålet handler om den præsident Obama, der insisterer på at angribe og konfrontere Rusland og Kina som fjender, og som skjuler og benægter beviser for, at Saudi Arabien, Tyrkiet, Qatar og London støtter radikal jihadisme. Den præsident, der beordrede den amerikanske »åbning« til det Muslimske Broderskab siden 2011; som, siden afsættelsen og mordet på Gaddafi, har ført en bevidst kurs mod et endeligt opgør med Rusland og Kina, og i hvilket selvmorderisk opgør han tror, at de vil kapitulere til regimeskift, hvor som helst, han måtte ønske det.

Stiftende redaktør for Executive Intelligence Review Lyndon LaRouche har krævet, at Obama fjernes fra embedet, siden 2009, hvor han, med det samme, Obama indtog Det Hvide Hus, identificerede hans fatale »Nero-kompleks«.

LaRouche fremlagde det i dag: »Putin udøver en kvalitet af lederskab, der er de fleste amerikanske præsidenter i vores historie overlegent – men Obama! Obama begik et bevidst bedrageri, to gange på nationalt TV, hvor han dækkede over terroroperationen i Californien. Han støttede denne operation ved at forsøge at skjule dens karakter, og dernæst skjule dens sponsorer. Obama er en faktor for terrorisme og krig, en potentiel atomkrig.«

Obama driver nu nationen og planeten hen mod en atomar konfrontation, som den menneskelige civilisation ikke kan overleve. Atomvåbeneksperter kan se det og kommer med offentlige advarsler. Mindst ét kongresmedlem kan se det; kongresmedlem Tulsi Gabbard fra Hawaii udfordrede forsvarsminister Carter med denne Obamas trussel om atomkrig i Husets Komite for de Bevæbnede Styrker. Præsident Putin og det kinesiske lederskab ser det helt bestemt og træffer enhver foranstaltning til at forberede sig, så vel som til at undgå krig.

Onsdag ringede en af LaRouchePAC’s samarbejdspartnere i Midtvesten til sit kongresmedlem, briefede ham og sagde til ham, at Obama måtte fjernes ved hjælp af det 25. forfatningstillæg, omgående. Kongresmedlemmet sagde, at han ikke havde hørt nogen diskussion om dette. Vælgeren svarede magtfuldt, »Så kan du begynde diskussionen!« Det gjorde kongresmedlemmet, usandsynligt nok, og ringede tilbage til sin vælger to gange til for at rapportere, hvordan de andre i Kongressen havde reageret.

Det er blot én borger. Gang det op. Ændr hvad du tænker mht. din mulighed for at være med til at gøre, hvad der i virkeligheden er ret og nødvendigt.

7. december 2015 – Veterandiplomat Paul Craig Roberts rejser netop denne frygtindgydende kendsgerning i en artikel i dag med overskriften: »Der er krig i horisonten: Er det for sent at standse det?« På trods af al Ruslands tilbageholdenhed og fornuft – først i Ukraine og nu i Syrien – bemærker Roberts, så er deres tilbageholdenhed blevet behandlet som svaghed, og ved hver begivenhed, især efter Tyrkiets angreb på russernes Su-24 bombefly, har Washington blot øget provokationsniveauet. Dette kan skyldes, som han ildevarslende bemærker i begyndelsen, at, »når mobilisering for krig først begynder, følger det sin egen dynamik og er ukontrollerbart.«

Alt imens han aldrig bruger termen »atomar«, fremlægger Roberts tydeligt kendsgerningen om den globale trussel. »Det er ikke klart, i hvilken udstrækning de russiske og kinesiske regeringer forstår, at deres uafhængige politik, som blev bekræftet af den russiske og den kinesiske præsident den 28. september [på FN’s Generalforsamling], af Washington anses for at være ’eksistentielle trusler’ mod USA’s eneherredømme. Grundlaget for USA’s udenrigspolitik er det forpligtende engagement over for at forhindre andre magter i at rejse sig til en status, hvor de vil være i stand til at begrænse Washingtons ensidige handling. Ruslands og Kinas evne til at gøre dette gør dem begge til mål.«

»Den russiske regering har forladt sig på ansvarlig, ikke-provokerende respons«, siger han. »Rusland har antaget en diplomatisk fremgangsmåde og forladt sig på, at europæiske regeringer kommer til fornuft og erkender, at deres nationale interesser afviger fra Washingtons, og ophører med at gøre Washingtons politik for eneherredømme mulig. Denne russiske politik er slået fejl. Gentagne gange er Ruslands ansvarlige responser med lav profil blevet brugt at Washington til at afbilde Rusland som en papirtiger, som ingen behøver være ræd for. Vi står tilbage med det paradoks, at Ruslands faste beslutning om at undgå krig, er i færd med at føre direkte til krig.«

»Hvad enten de russiske medier, det russiske folk og hele den russiske regering forstår dette eller ej«, siger Roberts som afslutning, »så må det være indlysende for det russiske militær. Det eneste, de russiske militærledere behøver gøre, er at se på sammensætningen af de styrker, der er sendt af NATO for at ’bekæmpe ISIS’. Som George Abert bemærker, så er de amerikanske, franske og britiske fly, der er blevet deployeret, kampfly, hvis formål er luft-til-luft-kampe, ikke angreb på jorden. Kampflyene er ikke deployeret for at angribe ISIS på jorden, men for at true de russiske bombefly, der angriber ISIS-mål på jorden.«

»Der er ingen tvivl om, at Washington driver verden hen imod et Armageddon, og Europa er den, der gør det muligt. Washingtons købte og betalte marionetter i Tyskland, Frankrig og Storbritannien (Det forenede Kongerige) er enten dumme, ligeglade eller magtesløse over for at undfly Washingtons greb. Med mindre Rusland kan vække Europa, er krig uundgåelig.«

8. december 2015 – For første gang har Rusland affyret krydsermissiler fra en ubåd imod ISIS-mål i Syrien. Ubåden Rostov-ved-Don affyrede et uspecificeret antal Kalibr krydsermissiler, mens den var neddykket. Den russiske forsvarsminister Sergei Shoigu sagde til præsident Putin, at både Israel og USA blev adviseret på forhånd om affyringen, hvilket er blevet bekræftet af Pentagons pressesekretær Peter Cook under en pressebriefing her til eftermiddag. Putin bemærkede, at Kalibr krydsermissilet kan armeres med både konventionelle og atomare sprænghoveder og tilføjede, at han håber, atomsprænghoveder »aldrig vil blive nødvendige«.

I øvrigt rapporterede Shoigu, at russiske krigsfly med base i Latakia og Tu-22M Backfire bombefly med base i det sydlige Rusland har fløjet 300 sortier og ramt 600 mål i løbet af de seneste tre dage, og alle sortierne har været ledsaget af Su-30SM kampfly.

Efter fuldstændigt at være blevet taget på sengen af den russiske præsident Putins strategiske flankeoperation i Syrien, som annonceredes den 30. september, har Det britiske Imperium og præsident Obama lanceret en igangværende række direkte militære angreb og provokationer imod Rusland, som eskalerer for hver dag, der går. Dette har de gjort gennem helejede datterselskaber såsom ISIS (der mere ligner en gren af Londons Dope, Inc.), den tyrkiske regering, Saudi Arabien osv. Tag denne korte kronologiske oversigt i betragtning:

* 31. okt.: Ruslands Metrojet sprænges i luften over Sinai af ISIS.

* 24. nov.: Tyrkiet nedskyder et russisk SU-24 over Syrien, med klar godkendelse og forudgående ondskabsfuld hensigt fra Obamas side. Tirsdag modtog præsident Putin flyets sorte boks, som det lykkedes russiske og syriske styrker at bjærge, og meddelte, at den kun vil blive åbnet under internationale eksperters tilstedeværelse, og at den ville vise, at flyet var blevet ramt i syrisk luftrum.

* 1. dec.: Den amerikanske forsvarsminister Ash Carter annoncerede deployeringen af yderligere amerikanske specialstyrker i Irak, under den irakiske regerings højlydte protester.

* 3. dec.: Tyrkiske tropper invaderede det nordlige Irak under den irakiske regerings skingre protester, igen med klar opbakning fra Obama. Dette eskalerede den 7. dec., da der rapporteredes om yderligere tyrkiske tropper, der gik ind i området, hvilket bragte tallet op på 900 iflg. guvernøren for provinsen Ninive, rapporterer Sputnik. Tyrkiet har nægtet at trække sine troper tilbage; deres eneste »indrømmelse« har været endnu ikke at sende yderligere 350 tropper, der er opstillet på grænsen, ind.

* 6. dec.: USA bombede en syrisk militærbase i Syrien og dræbte tre soldater; et yderligere amerikansk bombeangreb dræbte 32 civile. Forsvarsministeriet har afvist ansvaret for angrebet på militærbasen og har modargumenteret med, at russerne gjorde det.

Finnian Cunningham, den anti-britiske, irske, politiske analytiker, hvis artikler jævnligt udgives i de russiske medier, opsummerede situationen i en artikel den 7. dec. i RT: »På trods af de absurde benægtelser, så er den barske konklusion den, at NATO er i krig med Syrien … gennem forlængelse betyder dette, at NATO også har bevæget sig over i en krigstilstand imod Rusland, som den syriske præsident Bashar al-Assads regerings allierede.« Cunningham konkluderede: »Det ser ud, som om Washington er parat til at starte en verdenskrig.«

Og den russiske militærekspert Vladimir Bogatyrev gav et interview til Radio Sputnik den 7. dec., hvor han sagde, at Tyrkiets indrykning i det nordlige Irak er en provokation, de er koordineret med den amerikanske regering. »Vi er gået ind i en helt ny fase i kampen mod Daesh [ISIS] … Det er afgjort en tyrkisk provokation. Og den var selvfølgelig koordineret med USA.«

Men alle disse provokationer på vegne af briterne og Obama går op imod Putins stålsatte beslutning og hans igangværende flankering af provokationerne. Tirsdag meddelte Putin og hans forsvarsminister Shoigu, at Rusland havde lanceret krydsermissiler imod ISIS fra en russisk ubåd i Middelhavet. Putin tilføjede, at missilerne kan armeres med enten et konventionelt sprænghoved eller et atomsprænghoved, men at han håbede, atomsprænghoveder »aldrig vil blive nødvendige«.

Med formand Tom Gillesberg

6. december 2015 – Talsperson fra det kinesiske Udenrigsministerium Hua Chunying responderede den 4. dec. på spørgsmål om den russiske præsident Putins bemærkninger dagen før i sin tale til nationen, og til Ruslands rolle i Syrien:

»Kinas holdning er konsekvent og klar. Vi er modstandere af alle former for terrorisme og anvendelse af dobbelte standarder i spørgsmålet om kontra-terrorisme. Vi mener, at det internationale samfund bør gennemføre samarbejde omkring kontra-terrorisme efter formålene og principperne i FN’s Charter, så vel som efter andre anerkendte grundlæggende normer, der styrer internationale relationer. Alle parter bør opgradere samarbejde og kommunikation, indsnævre uoverensstemmelser og vedtage omfattende forholdsregler for således at skabe synergi i kampen mod terrorisme. Det internationale samfund bør seriøst gennemføre FN’s Sikkerhedsråds relevante resolutioner for kontra-terrorisme og gennemføre mere effektivt samarbejde i felter, såsom at afskære terroristernes finansiering.

Lederne af Kina og Rusland er nået frem til en stor konsensus omkring en gensidig tilpasning af det Økonomiske Silkevejsbælte og den Eurasiske Økonomiske Union«, tilføjede hun.

Hua Chunying var udtrykkelig med hensyn til et andet spørgsmål, om, hvorvidt Kina var modstander af Ruslands rolle i Syrien, eftersom det ikke skete via FN:

»Med hensyn til Ruslands kontra-terrorisme-kampagne i Syrien har Kina bemærket, at den blev lanceret efter anmodning fra den syriske regering og havde til hensigt at bekæmpe terroristernes styrker i selve Syrien. Den kinesiske side forstår og støtter altid handlinger for kontra-terrorisme, der er på linje med international lov og sker med godkendelse fra den berørte regering … Samtidig mener Kina, at de relevante parter seriøst bør gennemføre FN’s Sikkerhedsråds relevante resolutioner for kontra-terrorisme og fuldt og helt lade FN spille en førende rolle. Præsident Putin opfordrede faktisk også i sin tale til nationen til oprettelsen af en forenet front imod terrorisme i FN’s regi.«

6. december 2015 – Den syriske præsident Bashar Assad advarede igen i dag, i et interview udgivet af Londons Sunday Times, de europæiske nationer om disses aktuelle, katastrofale kurs og pegede som en modsætning på det, Rusland gør:

»De [Rusland] ønsker at beskytte Syrien, Irak, regionen – og endda Europa. Jeg overdriver ikke, når jeg siger, at de beskytter Europa i dag.« Men det, de europæiske nationer gør sammen med USA, hvor de bomber i Syrien uden hans regerings tilladelse, er ulovligt, sagde Assad, og er kun med til at få ISIS-canceren til at vokse.

»Vi ved lige fra begyndelsen, at Storbritannien og Frankrig var spydhoveder i støtten til terroristerne i Syrien, lige fra konfliktens begyndelse«, sagde han. »Vi ved, at de ikke har denne vilje, selv hvis vi vil gå tilbage til kapitlet om militær deltagelse i koalitionen, må den være omfattende, det må være fra luften, fra jorden, for at have samarbejde med tropperne på jorden, de nationale styrker, for at denne indgriben eller deltagelse skal være lovlig. Det er kun lovligt, hvis deltagelsen er i samarbejde med den legitime regering i Syrien. Så jeg ville sige, at de ikke har viljen og de har ikke visionen om, hvordan de skal nedkæmpe terrorismen …

Så jeg ville sige, for det første, så vil de ikke skabe nogen resultater. For det andet vil det blive skadeligt og ulovligt, og det vil støtte terrorisme, som det, der skete efter at koalitionen begyndte sin operation for et år eller så siden, for dette er ligesom en cancer. Man kan ikke skære i canceren. Man må fjerne den. Denne form for operation er ligesom at skære i canceren, som vil få den til at spredes hurtigere i kroppen.«

Assad gentog ikke desto mindre sit tidligere tilbud om at samarbejde med enhver, der er seriøs omkring at ødelægge ISIS: »Hvis de er parat – seriøst og oprigtigt – til at bekæmpe terrorisme, byder vi ethvert land eller enhver regering, enhver politisk indsats, velkommen; i den henseende er vi ikke radikale, vi er pragmatiske.«

6. december 2015 – Den ISIS-allierede Recep Erdogans tyrkiske regering deployeres af Obamaregeringen og briterne for at forsøge at provokere den russiske præsident Putin ind i deres fælde med en konflikt, der eskalerer til atomkrig.

De 150 tyrkiske tropper og 25 tanks, der i denne weekend uindbudt gik ind i det nordlige Irak, er »lige ved siden af Mosul og lige imellem kurderne og ISIS«, direkte på smuglerruten for illegal ISIS-råolie ind i Tyrkiet fra Irak, skrev Tyler Durden i ZeroHedge.com den 5. dec. Den tyrkiske avis Hurriyet tilføjede, at det er planen, at »Tyrkiet får en permanent militærbase i Bashiqa-regionen i Mosul«.

Den irakiske regering protesterede i går over, at den tyrkiske handling var en »invasion« og krævede deres omgående tilbagetrækning og optrappede i dag med en erklæring fra premierministerens kontor, der lød: »Hvis en tilbagetrækning af disse styrker ikke finder sted inden for 48 timer, har Irak ret til at tage alle tilgængelige muligheder i anvendelse, inklusive at ty til FN’s Sikkerhedsråd.« Foreløbig har Tyrkiet kun svaret lakonisk, at det har suspenderet alle yderligere troppeoverførsler.

I betragtning af disse udviklinger spørger Durden: »Dette er sluttelig endnu en optrapning fra Erdogan, og timing, sted og vage forklaringer rejser alle mulige spørgsmål om, hvad disse 150 tropper og 25 tanks foretager sig, men man kan være sikker på, at, hvis Bagdad irettesætter Washington og giver grønt lys til russisk rekognoscering og luftangreb i Irak, vil vi snart finde ud af det.«

Med et par nye hændelser mellem Tyrkiet og Rusland tilbageholdt Tyrkiet tidligere på ugen fire russiske handelsskibe i den tyrkiske havn Samsun pga. angivelige »manglende dokumenter« og overtrædelse af sikkerheden. Tre af de fire skibe blev frigivet den 4. dec., men et skib er fortsat tilbageholdt. Den tyrkiske handling kom iflg. rapporterne efter russerne tilbageholdt fem tyrkiske skibe i Novorossiysk, der siden alle er blevet frigivet. Og det Tyrkiske Udenrigsministerium har protesteret over, at en russisk soldat i går svingede med en raket-affyrer på sin skulder på dækket af et russisk skib under dets passage gennem Bosporus, der deler Istanbul i to.

Foto: Tyrkiets statsminister Recep Tayyup Erdogan.

4. december 2015 – Stifter af og international præsident for Schiller Instituttet Helga Zepp-LaRouche talte ved to arrangementer i Tokyo den 2. december, hvor hun leverede et klart budslab til 400 japanske erhvervsledere om, at Verdenslandbroen er den eneste måde, hvorpå krigens og geopolitikkens tyranni, og den igangværende krise i Mellemøsten, kan afsluttes. Om morgenen talte fr. Zepp-LaRouche til Asia Innovation Forums syvende årsmøde, med 300 unge, japanske igangsættere og med Noboyuki Idei, fhv. formand og leder af Sony Corporation og nuværende stifter og leder af Quantum Leaps, såvel som også stifter af Asia Innovators’ Initiative, som vært.

I sin omfattende fremlæggelse advarede fr. Zepp-LaRouche om det globale mønster med regionale krige, det let kan føre til en global katastrofe, inklusive en ny konflikt mellem supermagter, og hun understregede, at den eneste måde, hvorpå begivenhedsforløbet kunne ændres, var gennem fundamentalt at ændre paradigmerne for tankegangen. Hun gennemgik i detaljer Verdenslandbroen og identificerede de store, globale projekter, der kan transformere verden, og nævnte den kinesiske præsident Xi Jinpings »Ét bælte, én vej« som frøet til en global renæssance. Efter en detaljeret gennemgang af de umiddelbart gennemførlige, store projekter, udlagde hun idéen om menneskeheden som en enestående art, der har evnen til at skabe en fremtid gennem skabende opdagelser. Hun forklarede konceptet i Alexander Hamiltons og Henry og Mathew Careys Amerikanske, økonomiske System, og hun forklarede, hvordan disse ideer bredte sig i hele verden i det 19. århundrede og skabte de moderne nationer Tyskland under kansler Otto von Bismarck og Japan under Meiji-restorationen.

Sammen med fr. Zepp-LaRouche bestod ekspertpanelet desuden af fhv. IMF-direktør, Dominique Strauss-Kahn; fhv. chef for det statslige russiske jernbaneselskab, og medstifter af Rhodos Dialog mellem Civilisationer, Vladimir Yakunin; og Paolo Nogueira Batista jr., den tidligere brasilianske direktør for IMF, som nu er vicepræsident for den Nye Udviklingsbank, der er grundlagt af BRIKS og har hovedkvarter i Shanghai. Panelets ordstyrer var Daisuke Kotegawa, en fhv. topembedsmand i det japanske Finansministerium, der også var Japans direktør for IMF på tidspunktet for finanskrisen i 2007-2009.

Under sin fremlæggelse støttede dr. Yakunin kraftigt fr. Zepp-LaRouches forslag til Verdenslandbroen, og han bemærkede, at Ruslands politik for Eurasiske Udviklingskorridorer og Kinas politik for ’Ét bælte, én vej’ var helt igennem forenelige og repræsenterede det »ny paradigme« i tankegang, som der er så hårdt og presserende brug for, for at forhindre krige, der skabes af det døende, neo-liberalistiske system. Han understregede, at præsidenterne Putin og Xi havde forpligtet sig engagerende til russisk-kinesisk samarbejde for at virkeliggøre disse eurasiske infrastruktur-forbindelser.

Under sine indledende bemærkninger gik Strauss-Kahn i detaljer med den igangværende krise i det globale finanssystem og erkendte, at nedskæringspolitikken (’nøjsomhedspolitikken’) var en fiasko og måtte erstattes af en model for vækst, alt imens han medgav, at der ikke er nogen reel støtte til en levedygtig ændring af politikken internt i de globale, dominerende finansinstitutioner i dag.

Om eftermiddagen talte fr. Zepp-LaRouche ved en separat begivenhed, der var sponsoreret af Canon Institute for Globale Studier og havde deltagelse af 100 topledere fra de største, japanske industriselskaber og finansinstitutioner, såvel som fra den japanske regerings oversøiske investeringsagenturer og -fonde. EIR-redaktør Jeffrey Steinberg talte ligeledes til Canon Institute-forsamlingen, hvor han fremlagde et detaljeret billede af den reelle proces med økonomisk og samfundsmæssigt sammenbrud i USA.

Fr. Zepp-LaRouche fremlagde sin præsentation af Verdenslandbroen[1] som den eneste måde, hvorpå det geopolitiske fremstød for verdenskrig kan besejres.

Nogueira Batista fremlagde en dybdegående rapport om den Nye Udviklingsbanks fremskridt og planerne om at begynde at udstede udviklingslån i april 2016. Han gennemgik historien om BRIKS-landenes lancering af den Nye Udviklingsbank som respons på »Washington-institutionernes« – IMF’s og Verdensbankens – ynkelige fiasko mht. at gennemføre reformer i kølvandet på det finansielle kollaps i 2008.

[1] Se Helga Zepp-LaRouches tale her på hjemmesiden, senere.

I løbet af de 10 dage, siden Tyrkiets nedskydning af det russiske bombefly … , har de barske kendsgerninger, som hr. LaRouche har advaret om i årevis, hævdet sig meget levende, og på uigendrivelig måde: at, under denne præsidents fortsatte politik befinder verden sig kun en hårs bredde fra en fuldt optrappet atomkrig, en krig, der kunne bryde ud, hvornår det skal være, og en krig, der ville blive absolut uden fortilfælde mht. det omfang af død og ødelæggelse, som en sådan krig ville udløse. Engelsk udskrift.

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International Webcast for December 4, 2015

MATTHEW OGDEN: Good evening. It’s December 4, 2015. You’re
watching our regular Friday evening webcast here from
larouchepac.com. My name is Mathew Ogden, and I will be your host
here this evening. I’m joined in the studio tonight by Jeffrey
Steinberg from {Executive Intelligence Review}, and by Benjamin
Deniston from the LaRouche PAC Science Team. And the three of us
did have an opportunity to meet with both Lyndon and Helga
LaRouche earlier today, and what we present here tonight will be
informed as a reflection of the outcome of that discussion.
We meet here tonight under very urgent circumstances. In the
10 days since the shooting-down of the Russian fighter jet by
Turkey over Syrian territory, the stark reality of what Mr.
LaRouche has been warning about for years has asserted itself
very vividly, and in an indisputable way: that under the
continued policies of this President, the world is currently only
a hair’s breadth away from all-out thermonuclear war, a war which
could occur any hour of any day, and one whose consequences would
be absolutely unprecedented in the magnitude of death and
devastation which such a war would unleash.
As Mr. LaRouche was very forthright in the hours following
that incident on Nov. 24, and was echoed and confirmed later by
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Turkey was by no means
acting alone in the decision to take this incredibly provocative
action, but must have possessed some sort of prior agreement
directly from the United States to shoot this Russian plane
down-the very first such direct military action against a Russian
military aircraft by a NATO member country in over 60 years, and
one taken with the obvious foreknowledge of everything that such
an attack implies in terms of the rapid chain of escalation of
response, and counter-response, which can very quickly, under
these circumstances, lead to the issuance of a command for the
launch of a nuclear strike.
Thus, as Mr. LaRouche has not ceased to warn in very clear
terms, every day that Obama has his finger on the red button of
the United States strategic nuclear arsenal, is a day of
existential danger to the entirety of the human race.
Now in the aftermath of this incident, the dire urgency of
this grim reality has begun to sink in. We saw the article that
we mentioned last week in {Politico} magazine on Nov. 27, by
Bruce Blair, a nuclear security expert at Princeton University,
and one of the cofounders of the Global Zero movement for the
elimination of nuclear arms. The article was titled “Could
U.S.-Russian Tensions Go Nuclear?”, and described in detail the
so-called launch-on-warning status which have the nuclear weapons
of both Russia and the United States on hair-trigger alert in
which the decision to launch a full-scale nuclear barrage by
either side, must be made within a matter of mere minutes, if not
mere seconds. The author, Bruce Blair, says the following:
“The public doesn’t realize just how little time exists for
our leaders to make a decision to use nuclear weapons, even
today. And if anything, the atmosphere has become even more
hair-trigger. A launch order is the length of a tweet. Missile
crews in turn transmit a short stream of computer signals that
immediately ignite the rocket engines of many hundreds of
land-based missiles. For the United States, this takes one
minute. Given the 1 to 30 minute flight times of attacking
missiles, 11 for submarines lurking off the other side’s coasts,
and 30 minutes for rockets flying over the poles to the other
side of the planet, nuclear decision-making under
launch-on-warning, the process from warning to decision to
action, is extremely rushed, emotionally charged, and pro forma,
driven by check lists. I describe it as the rote enactment of a
prepared script. In some scenarios after only a 3 minute
assessment of early warning data, the U.S. President receives a
30 second briefing on his nuclear response options, and their
consequences. He then has a few minutes — 12 at most — more
likely 3 to 6, to choose one option.”
The author also quotes President Reagan, who in his memoirs
complained of having “only 6 minutes to decide how to respond to
a blip on a radar scope, and decide whether or not to release
Armageddon.” — which, parenthetically, is why President Reagan
decided to take up Mr. LaRouche’s proposal for a joint
U.S.-Russian space-based missile defense system, the so-called
Strategic Defense Initiative, to render nuclear missiles impotent
and obsolete. But as we well know, Barack Obama is definitely no
Ronald Reagan.
Now in addition to this article by Bruce Blair, yesterday
former Defense Secretary William Perry, said in a very
significant presentation which he made in Washington, D.C., the
following: “The U.S. is on the brink of kicking off a new nuclear
arms race that will elevate the risk of nuclear apocalypse to
Cold War levels. ” He said, “We’re now at the precipice, maybe I
should say the brink, of a new arms race,” and called for the
dismantling of the ICBM component of the so-called nuclear triad.
And he went on to say, “the risk of nuclear war is exacerbated by
the dismantling of the relationship between Russia and the U.S.
that had been formed after the fall of the Soviet Union. Without
clear military to military communication between those two
nations, the risk of conflict increases. I probably would not
have said this 10 years ago,” he said. But today we now face the
kind of dangers of a nuclear event like we had during the Cold
War, an accidental war. I see an imperative, therefore, to stop
this damn nuclear arms race from accelerating again.”
And finally, we have the confrontation by Congresswoman ,
Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, during a hearing of the
House Armed Services Committee, of Obama’s Defense Secretary
Ashton Carter, which we’re going to play a video clip for you in
just one minute. Representative Gabbard’s remarks were covered
quite extensively in the press, under headlines such as “Tulsi
Gabbard says, Obama Policies could trigger war with Russia,”
which was in the Huffington Post, and “Democratic Congresswoman
Warns, Obama Could Drag the U.S. into a devastating nuclear war
with Russia,” Daily Mail. What you’re about to hear Congresswoman
Gabbard say, also echoes statements that she made a few days
earlier in a CNN interview, after having returned from Paris, in
which she warned that Obama’s policies in Syria ” put the United
States and Russia into a head-to-head conflict, with the
possibility that one side will shoot down the other’s planes,
kicking of what is much larger, potentially world war, and a
nuclear war between the United States and Russia, and she said,
“We’ve got to ask ourselves: what will the costs of this be? The
devastation to the American people and to the world, and for
what? What’s the benefit? Why are we trying to do this in Syria?
Why are we trying to go to war with Russia over this disagreement
concerning the overthrowing of the Syrian government of Bashar
al-Assad. It’s crazy.”
So let’s see this short video clip of Congresswoman Tulsi
Gabbard and Ash Carter:

GABBARD: The policy to overthrow the Syrian government of
Assad has thrown us into a potential direct head to head military
conflict with Russia. I have some important questions along this
line. How many nuclear warheads does Russia have aimed at the
U.S., and how many does the U.S. have aimed at Russia?

CARTER: Congresswoman, I will get you those precise numbers
as best we know them. Let me just summarize it by the fact that
we have a, I’m confident, a strong, safe, secure, reliable
deterrent. But it’s also true that Russia, like the Soviet Union
that precedes it, has a massive nuclear arsenal.

GABBARD: Right. And it would be accurate to say that both of
our countries have the capacity to launch these nuclear weapons
within minutes?

CARTER: We do.

GABBARD: I’ve seen pictures, films, and images from Nagasaki
and Hiroshima; I know you have as well. And I presume you would
agree with me that nuclear war would be devastating to the
American people; the amount of suffering that it would cause and
the devastation to our families, our children, our communities,
our planet, our future generations is difficult to imagine. So,
I’m wondering if there’s been an assessment done on how many
lives would be lost and the damage that would be done if this
nuclear war between our two countries were to occur?

CARTER: Congresswoman, I’ve been doing this for a long time,
including during the Cold War, and working on nuclear weapons
since the beginning of my career. And to answer your question,
there have been estimates made right along. When there was a
Soviet Union, then a Russia, and it’s a very simple story; it is
as you say. Nuclear war would be an absolutely unprecedented, and
result in a catastrophic destruction; that is why deterrence is
so important, that’s why prudence in the field of nuclear matters
by leaders all over the world is so essential.

GABBARD: So the fact that we now have our F-15s patrolling
the Turkey-Syria border with a primary air-to-air combat
operation; there’s no air-to-air combat against ISIS. They don’t
have any air assets. So, I can only presume that the purpose of
these planes would be to target Russian planes; is that accurate?

CARTER: Congresswoman, let me answer the point you began
with, which is we have a different view, a very different view
from Russia about what would be constructive for them to do in
Syria. We have that disagreement; we can’t align ourselves with
what they’re doing. We’re opposing and want them to change what
they’re doing in Syria. That’s not the same as the United States
and Russia clashing; I think that the Chairman and his
counterpart in Russia just talked yesterday about making sure
that we didn’t by accident have any incident involving US and
Russian forces. So, we have a sharp disagreement there, but
that’s not the same as blundering into an armed situation with
one another.

GABBARD: But that sharp disagreement — sorry, sir, I only
have a minute here — that sharp disagreement with two
diametrically opposed objectives. One, the US seeking to
overthrow the Syrian government of Assad, Russia seeking to
uphold the Syrian government of Assad, creates that potential;
that strong potential and that strong likelihood for that
head-to-head combat, or that head-to-head military conflict. And
Russia’s installation of their anti-aircraft missile defense
system increases that possibility of whether it’s intentional or
even an accidental event, where one side may shoot down the other
side’s plane. And that’s really where the potential is for this
devastating nuclear war, for something that could blow up into
something much larger.

CARTER: I have to correct something, Congresswoman, that you
said; which is that I would characterize Russia’s prospective
differently. And by the way, what they say and what they do are
two different things. What they said they were going to do was
fight ISIL and pursue a political transition; and not support
Assad endlessly, but instead, try to pursue a political solution.
What they’ve done militarily has had the effect of supporting
Assad, no question about it. And they haven’t gone after ISIL,
they’ve gone after moderate — that’s our source of disagreement.
We’re having that disagreement and trying to get them to come
around; that is what Secretary Kerry is doing, to a more
reasonable and constructive position. But at the same time, as
the Chairman’s efforts indicate — and the Russians agree with
this intent on avoiding an accidental situation in the air over
Syria.

OGDEN: Having seen that, the question that you must ask is,
what is the necessary action that must be taken to defuse this
very real and immediate threat of thermonuclear war which
threatens us as a direct consequence of Obama’s policies, both in
Syria and elsewhere. And I’m going to ask Jeff to come to the
podium to address this question; but as Mr. LaRouche has
repeatedly said, the only guarantee is for responsible parties in
this country to take the Constitutional action necessary to
remove Barack Obama from the Presidency of the United States,
specifically through the activation of the 25th Amendment to the
US Constitution. Which stipulates that if the President is deemed
mentally incapable of serving in the role of Commander in Chief,
he can be removed and replaced through the predetermined line of
succession. Mr. LaRouche has been calling for this measure to be
taken for a number of years; but just this week, discussion of
this measure has exploded into the mainstream press, including
very significantly in an editorial that was published in the
{Washington Times} by staff writer Charles Hurt, which was
titled, “Has the President Lost His Ability to Discharge the
Powers and Duties of Office?” The editorial begins by asking,
“Has our President officially lost his ability to discharge the
powers and duties of his office? Anyone who listened to President
Obama speak to reporters in Paris on Tuesday, would reasonably
conclude that it is high time to start drawing up the papers to
transmit to Congress for his removal.” And after describing in
detail the rambling and largely incoherent performance by Obama
during his press conference in Paris earlier this week, the
author concludes by stating the following: “Someone alert the
Senate Pro Tem; somebody call the Speaker of the House, and let’s
all dust off the 25th Amendment.”
So Jeff, with all this evidence of a growing acknowledgement
in public discussion of the danger which Mr. LaRouche has been
warning about for years, of world war resulting from the
continuation of Obama’s policies, what can you tell us about what
the discussion is among responsible persons behind the scenes,
and what must be done now to remove this imminent threat of a
global thermonuclear war?

JEFFREY STEINBERG: Thanks, Matt. I think it’s important to
take note of the fact that the {Washington Times} did publish
that Charles Hurt piece, but that there were other commentaries
along exactly the same lines. There was a similar editorial
comment, picking up on the {Washington Times} story in the
{Washington Enquirer}; and in both cases, there were references
to a series of commentaries that appeared recently in the
{Washington Post}, which is generally thought of — along with
the {New York Times} as one of the mainstays of the liberal
establishment media apparatus. You had Richard Cohen and Dana
Milbank, two of the senior regular {Washington Post} editorial
columnists taking note of the fact that President Obama was
completely disoriented and when his teleprompter broke down
during the course of his presentations in Paris, he stammered and
staggered 336 times in a speech that ran a total of 13 minutes.
Never mind that the gathered world leaders were told that they
had a firm 5-minute limitation on their speeches. It may have
taken the President 13 minutes to deliver a 5-minute address; I
haven’t reviewed the text, or timed it or anything. But clearly,
he is suffering from severe mental exhaustion, a breakdown;
someone who — as Lyndon LaRouche identified as early as April of
2009 — suffers from a form of extreme narcissism, can’t avoid
the reality that the world is going in a very different direction
than his narcissistic delusions would have him believe.
Just prior to the attacks in Paris, on the 13th of November,
the President issued a statement saying that ISIS was contained
and on the way to being defeated, and didn’t pose a threat.
Earlier he had called them “the junior varsity of terrorism.” I
think reality tells us something quite different.
Earlier this week, he said that there is no measurable
security threat, here, inside the United States. And what we saw
happen in San Bernardino, California several days ago, clearly
demonstrates that that was not an accurate reflection of reality.
The response of the White House has been to put pressure on FBI
Director, [James] Comey, and on the media, to hold back from
drawing the obvious conclusion, that virtually anybody in their
right mind has drawn, from even the media coverage of that San
Bernardino incident, namely, that it was a pre-meditated
terrorist attack. It’s very much reminiscent of what happened on
September 11th, 2012, when President Obama ordered a false
statement, a patently absurd false statement, about the attack in
Benghazi [Libya] that led to the murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris
Stevens and three other American officials. And that, of course,
is still an issue that’s pending before the House [Select
Committee on Benghazi].  So, we’re clearly dealing with a
situation where the President’s grip on reality is slipping
precipitously.
Under similar circumstances, back in the early 1970s,
members of President Richard Nixon’s own political party, were
grounded enough in reality that they were willing to recognize
that Nixon was “losing it” mentally, and represented a grave
danger to the survival of the United States, and they were
seriously contemplating invoking the recently-ratified 25th
Amendment, that provides for the immediate removal of the
President of the United States. These recent articles, published
this week, have openly said that Vice-President Joe Biden should
reach out to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and similarly
consult with the Cabinet, and consider invoking the 25th
Amendment. That process can remove Obama from office within a
matter of {hours}. And so, we’re here in a situation. We’ve seen
the developments. We’ve saw the Tulsi Gabbard exchange with
Ashton Carter.
And, I think it’s noteworthy, that the statements that Matt
just quoted from, from former Defense Secretary Bill Perry, have
very much bearing on the situation, because Perry and Ash Carter
have jointly written a number of articles in military journals.
They’re very very close. One could almost say that Perry is
Ashton Carter’s mentor. So, if you’ve got someone like Perry
alarmed enough to come out publicly — and really, in a sense,
reverse his own statements of the recent years — and say we’ve
got to get in synch with the Russians, and you hold that up
against what Carter is saying as an official spokesman for the
Administration, putting the onus on Russia, and really refusing
to directly address the issues that were raised by Congresswoman
Gabbard, you get an idea that there is a disconnect from reality,
with respect to the most pressing and dangerous issue facing
mankind today, which is the question, “Are we close to the kind
of incident that could get out of control and lead to nuclear
war?”
Nobody in the Administration is talking about what the
consequences and implications are, of the fact that President
Obama {publicly, after the fact}, endorsed the actions of the
Turkish government in shooting down that Russian Su-24 over the
border area between Turkey and Syria. I’m told by leading U.S.
military and intelligence contacts that there’s unanimous
agreement among the leading countries of NATO, including the U.S.
military, and all of the major European militaries, that,
basically, the Turks had no business shooting down that Russian
plane; it was an act of {absolute provocation}. If Turkey was not
a member of NATO, with that Article 5 mandate for collective
security backing them up, without the idea that [President]
Erdogan had, that he had the full backing of President Obama,
it’s very unlikely that he would have even remotely considered
ordering the bombing of that Russian plane.
Now, what is the aftermath of that action by Turkey? From a
strictly military standpoint, as we talked about this last week,
leading figures within the U.S. military and intelligence
command, immediately got on the horn with their Russian
counterparts. And there was an agreement reached that this would
not be, in and of itself, a trigger for an all-out war in the
region, a war between Russia and Turkey. President Putin
refrained from any direct military retaliation against Turkey.
And that’s a good thing.
What Russia {did} however do, as Representative Gabbard
referenced, Russia has deployed their S-400 Air Defense Systems
to the airbase in Latakia Province inside Syria. That airbase is
32 miles from the Turkish border. The S-400 Air Defense Systems
have a range of 250 miles. In order words, Russia has the ability
to knock out Turkish aircraft 200 miles {inside} Turkish
territory. That’s an area in which U.S. fighter planes and drones
are also operating.
The Russians have now equipped all of their entire range of
Su fighter planes with air-to-air missile capabilities, so that
you’ve got both American and Russian, and now you’ve got the
added complexities of British and French, perhaps soon German,
planes, all flying within that same general airspace.
So, to say that we are not in a situation where the
conflict, even if it’s a disagreement over policy toward Syria,
that this doesn’t represent a hair-trigger situation for a war
that could directly involve U.S. and Russian forces, not
surrogates, but direct U.S. and Russian military forces, would be
an absolute denial of reality.
Now, a number of military thinkers have come out with
measures that could be taken to mitigate the risk. There are
those, including [ret.] German General [Harald] Kujat, who’ve
called for the re-convening of the NATO-Russia Council, to create
a mechanism for coordination between NATO and Russia, in which
the Syria-Turkey issue would be one element of it. Former top DIA
official and retired U.S. Army Colonel, [W.] Patrick Lang, in his
widely-read website, has said that Turkey should be suspended
from NATO, because their irresponsible behavior could, by itself,
be a trigger for general war. There are proposals, reflected by
[U.S. and Russian nuclear security expert] Bruce Blair; reflected
by Gen. [James] Cartwright, who was the former vice-chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff [and] former head of the U.S. Strategic
Command, our nuclear triad; along with Russian [Maj.] Gen.
[Vladimir] Dvorkin, who was the chief intelligence analyst for
Russia’s strategic rocket force — who’ve all said, “Let’s
immediately abandon launch-on-warning. We’ve got to, basically,
create an alternative to this hair-trigger situation, where a
decision about global nuclear annihilation, has to be made in a
matter of seconds.”
The reality is, that there is another option. It’s the
option that was referenced in the {Washington Times} and the
{Washington Examiner}, and even implicitly in the {Washington
Post}. And it’s the option that Lyndon LaRouche has been
discussing {for a very long time}. You’ve got to {remove} one of
the most crucial factors that continues this threat, which is the
continuation of President Barack Obama in office. The 25th
Amendment is there. His behavior in Paris, his erratic behavior,
has caused alarm bells to go off all over the place, and the
question that’s got to be posed, is: “Are {you}, Member of
Congress; are {you}, American Citizen, willing to run the risk of
maintaining a President in office, who may very well be “losing
it” mentally, and who certainly has exhibited a policy of hatred
towards Russia

and particularly towards President Putin, that under the present
circumstances poses a grave danger of general war, a war that
could be a nuclear war.
So, that’s the question on the table. And now that Mr.
LaRouche is no longer the only leading American political voice
openly talking about immediately invoking the 25th Amendment,
maybe it’s time for a serious national debate and dialogue on
that issue to put the kind of pressure on Vice-President Biden,
Secretary Kerry, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, to not run the
risk, to not play, to use a bad analogy, Russian roulette, with
nuclear warheads, and the barrel of a gun, when the survival of
humanity is at stake.
We are really now in a very different place than we even
were a few weeks ago. The actions taken by Erdogan have brought
us to that moment of hair-trigger, and while there are many
things that could be done to ameliorate that danger, the fact is
that none of them are possible so long as President Obama is in
office. So the tools are right there. The 25th Amendment can be
activated on a moment’s notice. We could have a regime change,
purely constitutional, here in the United States, as a measure of
caution against someone in a state of mental breakdown, being in
a position of having his finger on the nuclear trigger. And I see
no justification whatsoever for running the risk of mankind’s
survival, of waiting another day to activate that potential.

OGDEN: Thank you very much, Jeff. Now, I’m just going to
pose the institutional question for this evening, and Jeff will
deliver what Mr. LaRouche’s response was to this, as well as
Helga LaRouche’s insights. The question reads as follows: “Mr.
LaRouche, the German Bundestag has voted to support the U.S.
coalition military operations in Syria against the Islamic State,
and the British Parliament has also taken similar action. What is
your view of German and British involvement in the fight against
the Islamic state in Syria?”

STEINBERG: Well, I think that one thing that’s obvious, the
first comment from Mr. LaRouche on this was, yes, we’ve got to
defeat the Islamic State. It’s got to be done, and there’s got to
be an alliance of countries involved in doing that, and with
that, he said, of course always be cautious. You can never trust
the British.
Now, the fact of the matter is that there are measures that
could be taken, that would lead to the crushing of the Islamic
State, to the taking back of Raqqa, their nominal capital, to the
ouster of the Islamic State from Mosul–the military options are
all quite clear and are being openly discussed, and are being
proposed around the tables all over the place. Seal the border
with Turkey. The Erdogan government in Turkey through the son
Balal Erdogan, son of the president, has been the major source of
black market revenue for the Islamic State, since the very
beginning. We know that there are massive black market oil deals
going on between ISIS and the Turkish black market, which is
really the mafia underbelly of Erdogan’s AKP Party, and the MIT,
which is the Turkish equivalent of the CIA, run by one of
Erdogan’s very close associates.
So, you can seal the borders. You can start the economic
squeeze against the Islamic State. You could create a single
joint military command operation fully integrating Russia, into
whatever other military operations are going to be run. President
Hollande of France, when he was in Washington, and then in Moscow
last week, specifically proposed that there be a consolidated
unified air campaign against ISIS, and that on the ground the
Syrian army be integrated with some of the rebel groups that are
strictly made up of former Syrian military personnel-some element
of the Free Syrian Army, in particular. That kind of ground
force, maybe with some other assistance from the Iraqi military,
along with a massive air campaign, through a single unified
command, could wipe out the Islamic State, at least in so far as
it’s operating out of a major safe haven territory in Syria and
Iraq.
The problem, however, as has been demonstrated by Paris, by
San Bernardino now this week here in the United States–on a much
lower scale, of course– by the bombing of the Metro jet, Russian
metro jet over the Sinai, by the suicide bombings in Southern
Beirut, all of these things indicate that you’re dealing with a
much larger problem that’s not going to be solved overnight. You
can crush the nominal Islamic State militarily, but you’ve got to
address a much more fundamental issue, which is that the
policies, the geo-political policies coming out of the leading
Western powers-the United States, particularly Great Britain,
France to a degree, certainly Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the
United Arab Emirates, Turkey- there’s been a long-standing policy
of promoting the Saudi-Wahhabi neo-Salafist agenda, and spreading
this disease, this Dark Age ideology, all over the globe.
You have large swaths of territory in the Middle East, in
North Africa, in other parts of Asia, that are ungovernable, and
have been turned into no-man’s lands as the result of the
prolonged policies– I would say that it’s the Twentieth and
Twenty-First Centuries’ Thirty Years War, except it began
operationally in 1979, when Jimmy Carter and Brzezinski were
still in office, when there was a presidential finding
authorizing the assembling of the Islamist mujahideen to drive
the Soviet Red Army out of Afghanistan, except, of course, that
operation began 6 months before the Soviets even went into
Afghanistan.
So, we’re in the throes of a multi-generational process of
creating Dark Age conditions in many parts of the planet. If you
were born 35 years ago in Afghanistan, you’ve never lived under
anything other than 30 Years’ War conditions of violence and
chaos. And don’t say that Afghanistan was always like that,
there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s emphatically not
true. Throughout the postwar period, the 50s, 60s, and 70s, the
United States’ presence in Afghanistan was largely through the
Army Corps of Engineers, the Peace Corps, and other organizations
like that, and the place was relatively peaceful and stable. It
was not the world’s opium production capital. So, the point is
that there are alternative policies that must be enacted to
really defeat this Dark Age phenomenon.
The Chinese have adopted the One Belt/One Road policy of
developing vast corridors of infrastructure, of industrial and
agricultural expansion, of water management, throughout much of
Eurasia. For that program to work, it’s going to be urgent that
we achieve stability in places like Syria and Iraq, and in many
parts of North Africa. So, the real question here is, if you’re
prepared to commit to defeating the phenomenon that ISIS right
now is the most visible representation of, you’ve got to be
prepared to fundamentally change your thinking. You’ve got to be
willing to abandon geo-politics, altogether. Abandon the British
Empire, because this policy of permanent warfare across this
great big crescent running from North Africa through the Middle
East and Central Asia, all along the southern borders of the
former Soviet Union into Western China,–that’s a British
geo-political policy. It was called the Bernard Lewis plan back
in the 1970s, of spreading fundamentalist chaos along that entire
what they called crescent (arc) of crisis.
That program hasn’t changed. It’s British geo-politics at
its worst. It’s population warfare at its worst. And those
policies must be abandoned all together. There was even a
commentary this week in the {Wall Street Journal} of all places,
asking the question of whether or not China’s New Silk Road
policy might not be the key to saving the situation in Syria and
Iraq, and throughout that region. You’ve got to give people hope
that there is a viable prospect for a future, if you’re going to
get those leading strata within Syrian society back from Europe,
where they were driven out by ISIS; back into Syria to rebuild
their country. They’ve got to know that there is a commitment to
a kind of a global Marshall Plan, which the Chinese have proposed
as part of their One Belt/One Road policy. I had the privilege,
earlier this week, of being in Tokyo, attending two conferences.
One where Helga Zepp-LaRouche spoke about the urgent need to
avoid the war dangers by the United States and other western
countries, by becoming fully involved and committed to working in
conjunction with China and the other BRICS countries on this One
Belt/One Road policy. We’ve got to build development corridors
from areas that are now strictly war zones. I spoke at a second
conference earlier this week with Mrs. LaRouche in Tokyo; and we
both took up this question very strongly. You need a new paradigm
of thinking; you need to think at the level of real human beings
who uniquely are capable of thinking about the future. Of
creating a new future; not one that’s defined by the geopolitics
of population war, but one that’s defined by scientific
advancement, by the betterment of all mankind. So, the issue on
the table is, you can defeat ISIS militarily with some readily
available tool; especially if you drop the war confrontation with
Russia, and get into an alliance with Russia, which means getting
Obama out of office under the 25th Amendment. It’s doable, but
you’re not going to solve the deeper underlying problem of the
consequences of the last 35 years or more of this hideous
geopolitics of pitting one nation, one people against another,
promoting irrationalism and fundamentalism. You’ve got to
basically roll up your shirt sleeves and begin real development
of the kind that China has correctly defined as the win-win
policy of the future.

At this conference, there was a leading representative from
Russia, Dr. Yakunin, who said that the Russians have concluded
that their Eurasian development plan for major infrastructure
projects, is completely compatible with China’s One Belt/One Road
policy. India, as a leading BRICS country, is fully on board with
that prospect. We’re about to develop a plan and publish it in
the coming days, for the United States to become fully integrated
into this global World Land-Bridge policy. But this requires an
overhaul of thinking; and that overhaul of thinking is now long
overdue, because the very survival of mankind is literally on the
table is we don’t make that change.
So, we’ve got a much bigger challenge and a much bigger
agenda. Even if we’re serious about defeating the Islamic State
and other manifestations of this Dark Age policy. It’s going to
have to be done through a vast change in thinking, and a return
to real human thinking about what kinds of projects can insure
not just the survival, but the betterment of mankind going into
the future.

OGDEN: Thank you, Jeff. Just by way of quick introduction of
Ben Deniston, who’s going to conclude our broadcast here tonight,
I want to pick up here directly off of what Jeff just ended with.
As those who have been following the website this week know; and
who had the chance to participate last night in the Fireside Chat
with Mr. LaRouche, Mr. LaRouche’s emphasis has been one of saying
that this entire Dark Age situation which we now find ourselves
in today — both internationally as Jeff just elaborated, and
also here domestically with the Dark Age of rising death rates,
addictions, violence, and so forth, that is plaguing the American
people as the result of 16 years of a Bush and Obama
Presidencies, Mr. LaRouche said, “The future cannot be created by
a continuation of the failed policies of the past. This Dark Age,
which we now find ourselves in the midst of, cannot be overcome
without the conscious elimination and overturning of the failed
axioms of the present system. A New Paradigm today, as Jeff was
just discussing, just as with the Golden Renaissance of Filippo
Brunelleschi and Nicholas of Cusa, is never something which can
come about through an evolutionary change,” as Mr. LaRouche said
last night, “but only as a consciously revolutionary effect of
the intervention of a great genius. The effect that a great
genius has on history; a genius such as Brunelleschi or Cusa. Or
more recently, you can use the example of Albert Einstein.
Geniuses who reject the failed ideas of the past, and instead
introduce something completely new; a valid, newly discovered
principle upon which a valid and viable future can be built. So
this is something which obviously Mr. LaRouche has done
consistently throughout his life; and has based his entire career
on. But for those of you who had the chance to participate in the
Fireside Chat with Mr. LaRouche last night will know, you heard
him call on all of you; on all of the American citizenry to adopt
that perspective of genius as your personal commitment going
forward. And this is obviously something which all of us have to
think about very profoundly.
So Ben, I guess I would ask you to elaborate for us a little
bit, what is the equivalent of the great Brunelleschi’s dome, you
could say, of today; which can be the herald of this new
Renaissance for all mankind today?

BENJAMIN DENISTON: It’s quite a task, I think, Matthew. But
as Matthew said, I’m just going to pick up off of — we’ve been
working on, the LaRouche PAC Science Team — this program of
putting together a picture for the American people, what it would
mean for the United States to join this New Silk Road
orientation. What it would mean for us as a country to really
return to our roots, as founded by people like Alexander
Hamilton, as Mr. LaRouche has put a great deal of emphasis in his
most recently developing flank in Manhattan being real soul of
the nation where we could pivot the United States back to an
orientation like Matt just referenced in terms of a real pursuit
of mankind as a creative force. What will it actually mean for
the United States to once again participate in that process? And
this is something that, as was referenced, at least a thesis
perspective on what that would look like for the United States.
But I wanted to open by just referencing something that was
mentioned earlier, just to get a sense to get at the real
principle of what we were talking about. There was a rather
unprecedented study that came out, a study that’s rather shocking
that pointed to an unprecedented reality which has been uncovered
in just the last couple of months, which is the realization of
the increase in death rates among white, American, working age
people. And we have a graphic illustrating the comparison of the
death rates for this particular demographic, in comparison with a
number of other developed nations. [Figure 1] And we can see in
red there, from 1990 up to past 2010, the change in the death
rate for, again, white Americans from age 45 to 54. And I just
want to put this on the screen for a minute, because there’s a
lot of stats we can go through in terms of what’s happening, and
a lot can be done to give a sense that I think most Americans
have their own clear sense of, living in this nation, of the real
process of death of the U.S. economy, under the Bush-Obama reign.
But I think this one is rather shocking, because these are
people that are supposed to be in their prime. We’re talking
about people who are supposed to be reaching their, towards the
peak of their productive contribution to society, people who are
supposed to be approaching the pinnacle of their ability to
contribute to the advancement of the society of which they’re a
part. And what are we seeing in that layer of the population?
This dramatic acceleration, continual year to year increase, in
the death rate of this section of the population. As the authors
of the study stated, “We have half a million Americans who are
now dead, who frankly should not be dead,” according to what we
would expect from a healthy economic process.
And what’s the cause of this? What are the major factors
contributing to this increase in the death rate? You have drug
addiction, alcoholism, substance abuse, prescription drug abuse,
heroin abuse, suicides. These are diseases of despair as has been
said. These are diseases of a dying society, where people who
should be at their prime contribution to the economic process,
are instead ending their own lives. They’re killing themselves.
What’s supposed to be our leading productive sector of the
economy is instead destroying and ending their own lives, through
their own willful choice of these substance abuse, drug
addiction, suicide, what have you.
So I think this should be taken as a very clear signal of
what’s happened to the United states, what’s happened to the
American economy. And what we have to reverse. And what I want to
talk about just briefly is trying to get at the essence of the
issue, to the degree possible. Because we can talk about putting
people back to work, we could talk about creating jobs, we could
talk about rebuilding things-but that’s not going to get to the
real essence of what we confront right now as a nation. We have
to really re-find the purpose of the existence of our nation, as
Matthew referenced as Mr. LaRouche said last night, in an
understanding of what is mankind’s purpose as a creative force in
the Universe.
Why do people work? Why do people have jobs? Why do people
work to contribute to society? What’s the purpose of existence?
That’s been eliminated really over two generations, increasingly
though in a rapid acceleration, under the Bush-Cheney regime. The
very idea that mankind is inherently creative species; I mean,
that mankind creates its own existence meaning that {you}, as an
individual part of that species, part of that process, can
participate in the actual physical creation of the future state
of society. That if society moves forward, … And what do we
mean by “move forward”? LaRouche has spent decades developing a
science of physical economy. What is economics for mankind? We
can support a greater population, higher population density, with
better living standards for everybody; that unlike the animals,
unlike the Greenies’ ideology, there’s no zero sum game for
mankind. There’s no finite, fixed amount of wealth for the human
species. That mankind can uniquely create a fundamentally higher
state of existence for his species as a whole.

That doesn’t come from merely finding some new resource, or
exploiting some new resource, but from the unique creative powers
of the human mind. Something {unique} about the human mind that
we don’t see existing anywhere in animal life per se. That that
unique capability is the substance, the principle, underlying
what makes mankind a unique force on this planet. We have to
again find our existence in exercising and implementing that
principle–the idea that based on that principle, we can create
wealth for our nation. We can grow our population. We can have a
large population with higher living standards, better
infrastructure, better conditions of life, better health care. We
can provide all that. Mankind has the ability to do that. But the
way that mankind does that is by the creative contributions of
individuals acting in coordination with society.
We’ve lost the connection to that. We have to re-establish
the connection to that. Really in a scientific sense. That
mankind has a real physical immortality that he can create for
himself. He can be the creation of the future existence, not just
the extension of the past, not just the extension of the present,
but the creation of a state of existence for society which would
not ever exist if not for the actions, the contributions, of the
earlier generation of the earlier state.
That’s what we have to return to. Creation of new states for
mankind, not just perpetuating or rebuilding what we had in the
past, but rising to a new level. And we need that now more than
ever. That has been at the root of our existence as a republic,
again going back to Hamilton, people like Lincoln, people like
Franklin Roosevelt-that’s been understood to varying degrees,
that this is what makes mankind unique, and we have to focus our
efforts of government, of society, in exercising and facilitating
that creative process.
So what do we need to do now, today? Just to go through some
of the obvious things that we should be focused on, and doing as
a nation. One leading element is going to be rebuilding our
nation, rebuilding our infrastructure, and in a sense not really
rebuilding, but building anew, building a higher level of
existence for our nation. And one of the things we’re going to be
featuring in our prospective program for the United States is
actually building a modern, high-speed rail system. This is just
obvious. That transportation in the United States would be a joke
if we didn’t have to deal with it every single day. The idea of
people just wasting their lives on these highways. Hours upon
hours upon hours daily, just wasted.
If you go to the third graphic here, we have a comparison,
just to give people a sense of–in the green, we see existing
high speed rail systems in the United States and China. Now, in
the United States this has been debatable whether we could
actually include the green corridor we’ve included as technically
high-speed rail. Relative to what we have, we could consider it
high-speed rail, but that’s not saying much. It’s stretching the
definition, but it’s the closest we have. and throughout the rest
of the United States, you see one proposal, among a number of
proposals, for what kind of obvious, sane high-speed rail system
we should have: travelling 150 miles per hour, to get people to
different locations in a quick efficient manner.
You see China is doing this. You see China’s program now,
what they’ve built, and what they’re committed to building I
believe out to 2020, for their high-speed rail program. So this
could be done. This needs to be done.
We have the water issue. We have, to put it lightly, insane
governor in California, who, despite living on the coast of the
largest body of water on the face of this planet, seems to think
that we’ve run out of water. Well, we have plenty of means
available to us to provide all the water we need. Some of this is
illustrated in the next graphic, the fourth graphic. This is
something we’ve covered in more detail on the LaRouche PAC
website and other locations. But mankind fully has the capability
of managing the water cycle in completely new ways.
We have desalination. LaRouche has been talking about
desalination for decades. Nuclear-powered desalination, you can
provide the water you need in the coastal areas. You can do water
transfer. There’s rivers that exist that have abundant excesses
of water that just flow into the ocean unused. And we can really
go to the frontiers. We can look at mankind managing the water in
the atmosphere. This is actually happening right now as we speak
in various places around the world. We have technologies now to
actually manage precipitation in the atmosphere; increase
precipitation where we want it. Some of this is drawn directly
from insights into how our Earth’s climate system actually
responds to different galactic environments — the galactic
conditions affecting our climate. Understanding this gives us an
insight into how we can manage those conditions; how we can
increase the rainfall where we need it. How we can actually
direct flows of atmospheric water vapor to where they’re needed.
We could be drawing the atmosphere of water vapor from over the
Pacific Ocean into California and increasing the rainfall in
California. We can do that.
Power, energy, nuclear power; we’ve been sitting on nuclear
power for decades. It’s been suppressed; fusion has been
suppressed. There’s been a conscious policy to not put the
resources into fusion that are needed to develop fusion power.
We’ve had in effect a policy of not developing fusion power for
decades. You just look at the budget compared to what was known
to be required to develop it; it’s obvious. And various experts
have made clear, we can have a demonstration functioning fusion
power plant in 10-15 years, if we decided to do it.
Obviously, all this would require a high-speed rail system,
solving our water crises, mass production of nuclear power, a
crash program to develop fusion power. This would force us to
confront the fact that we need to rebuild our manufacturing base;
rebuild our industrial base. We’d be forced to confront a certain
reality that now we look at an unemployment problem; with this
program, we’re going to be confronted with a little more
frightening reality. We actually have an unemployable problem; we
have people who have no skills. We’re going to need to look back
to things like Franklin Roosevelt’s CCC program, and figure out
how to upgrade that and advance that for an entire new challenge
of taking not just a labor force, a society that’s had no
productive work for a decade or more. And look, we’ve had two
generations of zero-growth policy; two generations of
de-industrialization, a shift towards this insane, so-called
“services economy”. Wall Street bubbles. We’ve had fewer and
fewer people who have any idea of how to contribute a productive
contribution to the economic process.
So, we’re going to need to actually tackle all these issues.
And, again, this is not just rebuilding stuff we had before; it’s
not just rebuilding our infrastructure. It’s not just recreating
the state of the economy as it was 20, 30 years ago. This is
looking at how do we increase the potential productivity of the
economy as a whole to a completely new level? Modern
transportation, water, power. We can open up entire new regions
of the continent; entire new territories of the nation can now be
developed. New agriculture; new production; new industries; new
cities. We could actually be developing new Renaissance cities,
organized around a conception of man as a creative process. The
city itself can be an expression of the principle of this new
Renaissance; this New Paradigm that we want to create. The
construction of sane, organized city population areas, centered
around cultural development; educational development. Centered
around universities and cultural systems as the core of the
development of your population, of your society. That organizes
this city. Around it, you have the various agriculture, industry,
etc. that’s an expression of mankind’s creative capabilities. But
actually coherently designing the city in which the population
around this new principle, this new conception of mankind.
So, this is what we can do; this is what we need to fight
for. But I think to attempt to address what Matthew said in terms
of Mr. LaRouche’s remarks in terms of actually creating a new
future; that has to be the number one guiding principle. And Mr.
LaRouche in recent years has again come back to the pedagogy of
the difference between mankind and the animals. And I think
that’s something that most people still don’t understand the way
he understands it. What is it that mankind has that makes our
species separate; that makes us distinct? What is that actual
principle which mankind has the ability to tap into and employ if
he chooses to; if he chooses to organize his society in a truly
human way? And what would that mean for us today? Well, again, it
wouldn’t mean just doing what we’ve done in the past. It would
mean that right now, what we have to do is bring society to a
level that we’ve never had before. And we have to fight to engage
the American population again into recognizing that their meaning
to history, their meaning, period, depends upon that. That the
meaning of their very existence depends upon recognizing that
they have a potential to contribute to the creation of a higher
state of existence for society. And for mankind, if we’re not
doing that, if we’re not organizing society to do that and
exercise that, and implement those creative leaps of mankind,
then you’re not being human; and your population is being denied
an actual efficient access to their true scientific immortality
as a human species.
There’s obviously a lot that could be said, but I think
that’s the principle that we have to focus on; that it’s not just
about creating jobs. It’s not just about employing people who are
various economic statistics; it’s about coming to a new, higher
understanding of economics really as an expression of this unique
spark of human creative potential. And we have to, again, focus
on that as the number one issue; the cause, the substance of what
will allow us to progress and move forward. And that really is
the whole purpose of all of this.
So, we’re going to have more coming out; a lot more can be
said, but I think that’s the challenge that we have right now.
And I think it’s going to be a huge challenge, given what’s
happened to the population; especially in the last two
Presidencies. But the fight is to awaken that in the American
people; they have to realize that this is the only thing that’s
worth fighting for. Fighting for creating the future in a way
that is truly, uniquely human.

OGDEN: Thank you, Ben. And what Ben referred to, is a
forthcoming programmatic feature which is intended to be a
supplement to the EIR Special Report, “The New Silk Road Becomes
the World Land-Bridge”. This is going to be titled, “Why the
United States Must Join the New Silk Road”. I also know this will
be the bulk of the subject of the presentation which Helga
delivered in Tokyo, which Jeff was referring to; and will be
available in transcript form in the next edition of {Executive
Intelligence Review}. So, I’m going to bring a conclusion to our
broadcast here tonight. I would encourage all of you to continue
participating in both the Thursday night Fireside Chats, which
Mr. LaRouche hosts every week, as well as if you are present in
the New York City area, the Manhattan Project meetings, which
occur every Saturday afternoon. Another one will occur tomorrow.
So, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you to both
Jeff and Ben, and please stay tuned to larouchepac.com

3. december 2015 – Drevet frem af Putin personligt blev der i går, forud for tidsplanen, tændt for den første »energibro«, der via Kerch-strædet forbinder Krim med det integrerede russiske el-net, og som kan levere 200 MW elektricitet. Den anden 200-MW ledning skulle efter planen blive operationel den 20. dec., men Putin presser på for at dette skal ske tidligere, den 15. dec. eller deromkring, hvis det overhovedet er muligt.

Ukraine forsynede Krim med al Krims elektricitet (ud over individuelle generatorer), 800 MW, indtil det fascistiske regimes bøller sprængte disse forbindelser i luften den 20. november. På det tidspunkt optrappede Putin-regeringen arbejdet med at få noget strøm igennem før den oprindelige startdato, som var den 20. dec. Der kommer yderligere to undervands-el-ledninger i kraft i maj 2016, og der skal bygges to nye kraftværker i 2017-2018.

Ved indvielsesceremonien udtrykte Krims leder Sergei Aksyonov over for Putin Krim-folkets »enorme taknemlighed, respekt og kærlighed til Deres personlighed« i bevidstheden om, at De ikke ville »efterlade dem hjælpeløse«.

Foto: Mørklagte gader i Simferopol, Krim.

3. december 2015 – I en tale på London School of Economics torsdag benægtede Letlands udenrigsminister Edgars Rinkevics, alt imens han ikke gav udtryk for varme følelser for Rusland og protesterede over, at Krim havde sluttet sig til Rusland igen, osv., en rapport, der sagde, at Letland ikke ville indgå i nogen koalition, der involverer Rusland, rapporterede Baltic Times i går.

»Jeg vil ikke udelukke, og vi kan finde en måde at koordinere med Rusland på, i det mindste til et niveau, hvor vi ikke nedskyder hinandens fly eller starter Tredje Verdenskrig … Hvis vi ikke koordinerer med Rusland, vil vi ikke være i stand til at nedkæmpe ISIS på den mest effektive måde«, sagde Rinkevics.

Han sagde også, at de erklæringer, som den lettiske, littauske og estiske præsident havde udstedt den 20. nov., var blevet rapporteret på en upræcis og oversimplificeret måde af den internationale presse, da denne sagde, at De baltiske Stater ikke ville indgå i nogen koalition, der involverede Rusland, iflg. Baltic Times. Virkeligheden er langt mere nuanceret, i det mindste i Letlands tilfælde, sagde han.

For sit vedkommende sagde Estlands premierminister Taavi Roivas i et interview til Reuters i går, at han ikke tror på, at Rusland vil angribe Letland, på trods af »bekymrende« indtrængen og militærøvelser nær ved dets grænser i år. Reuters sagde, at han også »distancerede sig fra et krav fra Letlands og Litauens side om en permanent NATO-troppetilstedeværelse i Baltikum.« Roivas sagde: »Scenariet med grønne mænd [dvs. russiske tropper] er ikke mere sandsynligt her end i Storbritannien. Estland er et NATO-land, og jeg anser det for usandsynligt, at Rusland tænker på at angribe NATO … NATO-lande bør ikke være bekymrede over direkte intervention.«

Foto: Edgars Rinkevics